Translating Hebrew into French compels the translator to understand the unique history of the Hebrew language and its subsequent relationship to French.

Is Hebrew-French Translation an art or a science?

Any Hebrew-French translator will tell you that the Hebrew and the French languages share one rare quality that complicates Hebrew-French translations. They both have an official institution now laboring to preserve the purity of the language and to limit the invasion of foreign words.

The creation of “Académie Française” in 1635 and the “Academy Ivrit HaLashon” (Academy of the Hebrew Language) in 1890 reflect a similar wish to fix the language and to make it understandable by all, but their function has evolved through time and has turned them into the dedicated guardians of the language. Their formal requirements would indicate that Hebrew-French Translations are more a science than an art.

These academies desire for linguistic purity are far from being the only stumbling block that Hebrew-French translators are facing. It simply compounds the difficulty already inherent in translating a Semitic language into a Latin one.

A Hebrew-French translator will have to versatility of the Hebrew grammar into the wealth of vocabulary of the French language. This is why Hebrew-French translations require much more than an intimate knowledge of both languages by the linguist. The Hebrew-French translator will have to adapt a grammar-based language into a vocabulary-based one, a feat that few are able to perform easily. That would turn the Hebrew-French translator into an artist, and not a scientist.

So Hebrew-French translation might be defined as a scientific art, or as an artistic science, the jury is still out on that question.

All Hebrew-French translators working with hebrew-translation.com have been thoroughly vetted to ensure that they will always produce translations that are more than simply accurate and complete. Their translations are indiscernible from a text originally written in French.

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